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St. Louis, October 13, 1883. 

Hon. Titos. T. Crittenden., Governor of Missouri, Your 

Excellency : 

In opening this, the third chapter of my history of your 
administration, as Governor of the good State of Missouri, 
I feel, as did M. Thiers when ho undertook to write the 
" Consuhite and Empire of Napoleon." Without at all 
comparing myself to that great historian, I yet may say 
that each of us had one thing in common, namely the good 
fortune to be cotemporary with our hero. . I can go 
farther and state that I, like him, am oppressed with the 
voluminous details within my reach, all of which are to be 
examined thoroughly and sifted conscientiously before I can 
present them to the world with the undeniable stamp of 
truth. 

If your Excellency would, for only a moment, look 
through your own eyes instead of those which so gorgeously 
bedizen the tail feathers of the peacock usually overhanging 
your brow, you would be amazed at the vast labor which is 
mine, in attempting to play the part of Boswell to your 
Johnson. Here I sit, surrounded with letters, newspapers, 
and affidavits from every section of the State — all from 
Democrats — not alone from the betrayed leaders who have 
been twitted with your malefactions on every rostrum in 
Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas, but from the bone and 
sinew of the party, each clamoring that I should give pub- 
lic expression to their disgust. Your Excellency will 
readily imagine how difficult this is to do, and will probably 
deprecate my hardihood in attempting so superhuman a 
task. 

In my defence, I may allege that I am still young, — 
about your own age, — and as the great French Cardinal has 
said: " In the lexicon of youth, there is no such word as 
fail." 



_2 — 

Since my last chapter your record runs thus: In the 
Criminal Court of St. Louis, on the 18th day of April, 1877, 
one Sam Smith, a negro, pleaded guilty to murder in the 
second degree and was sentenced to the penitentiary for 
ten years. Sometime after the incoming of your adminis- 
tra.tion, in flat violation of the law, he was assigned to the 
corps of striped janissaries guarding the person of your 
Excellency. In this capacity he won your favor, and on the 
3d of January, the day upon which the Greneral Assembly 
convened, he received an unconditional pardon. Repairing 
to the capitol, all wreathed in grins, and in his own musical 
vernacular, he said : " De Gubnor is gwine to gib dis chile 
a place in de legislachar ! " This negro murderer's name, 
through your influence, appeared on the pay-rolls of the 
House on that same day, and he drew his two dollars per 
diem until the Speaker's hammer fell for the sme die ad- 
journment. As this is the only exhibition of gratitude I 
have ever known you to make for non-pecuniary favors, I 
hesitate before condemning it. In fact, as you are still 
alive and in ofiice, I do not think I amderelect as a historian 
in suggesting that should ever a similar occasion arise you 
ought to advise the nigger to keep your secrets. 

Upon page 90, of the State Auditor's Report, will be 
found an entry of $80, paid to the Simmons Hardware 
Company of this city, for " the apprehension of criminals 
and suppression of outlawry." On first reading it, I was 
somewhat puzzled. The general impression obtained that 
this enterprising firm was engaged solely in the trade 
of hardware, cutlery, etc. The apprehension of criminals 
and the suppression of outlawry did not appear to be 
within the purview of their legitimate business. It is true 
that the senior member of the firm accepted from you the 
ofiice of Police Commissioner, but finding that as fast as 
he caused criminals and outlaws to be convicted and jailed, 
you inter})Osed your executive pardon, he, with his two 
honest colleagues, retired in disgust. I thought it my duty, 
as your historian, to inquire into the matter. I found that 



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the $80 was accounted for in the fact that the firm had 
simply filled your order for four No. 44 Smith & Wesson 
revolvers, of the same pattern used so effectively in the 
murder of Jesse James, under your order, by that genial 
museum curiosity, Mr. Robert Ford. Did I not feel that 
it would be lowering my dignity as a historian, I would 
advise that after your retirement from oflice you and Bob 
Ford should pose in all the dime museums of the country 
(you as plotter and he as executioner), with considerable 
profit to both. But passing that, let me here tell the use 
to which these weapons were put. A coterie of wags, 
originating in this city and having accomplices throughout 
this and adjoining States, with exemplary lack of judgment, 
took it into their heads to send you letters from all points 
of the compass, threatening your precious life for your 
complicity in the nmrder of Jesse James. To these letters 
the sio-nature of Frank James, or some of his friends, was 
deliberately forged. Almost simultaneous with their re- 
ceipt, and when they had worked on you to such an extent 
that the footfall of a mouse would make you dance like a 
boy unexpectedly stung in the rear by a hornet, the Sedalia 
Democrat, at that time edited by Major Edwards, asked 
the following momentous question: "What right had any 
ofllcer of the State to put a price upon his (Jesse 
James') head, and hire a ])and of cut-throats and high- 
waymen to murder him for money?" You knew these 
words were intended for you. At the height of the 
terror they occasioned, the pistols arrived. Secreting 
one about your own person, you handed one to your 
private secretary, another, as I am informed, to the 
janitor of the Capitol, and the fourth to Mr. John T. Clarke, 
chief clerk in the Auditor's office. Having thus placed 
your guns in position with the old time generalship you so 
often displayed as lieutenant-colonel of militia, your nerves 
began to resume their ordinary equilibrium. In fact, the 
disposition ' of your troops was most ingenious. Mr. 
Clarke's desk is immediately across the hall, opposite to your 



_4 — 

office. You hoped that when Frank James, upon vengeance 
intent, should place his hand on the knob of your door, Mr. 
Clarke would play the role of Bob Ford, and brain him with 
a bullet from behind. You could then have asserted with 
Richard III., " The murder would then have been his, not 
mine." But Mr. Clarke is quite an observer of human 
nature, so, instead of sitting at his door from rising morn 
till dewy eve, with a cocked pistol in his hand, waiting for 
Frank James, he quietly carried your weapon into his inner 
office and, after pigeon-holing it as a sacred relic of your 
style of suppressing outlawry, sat down in his easy chair 
and laughed and laughed and laughed. It is chronicled that 
his laughter continued from day to day, until you asked 
him to pay out of the funds of the State your personal sub- 
scription to the Sedalia Democrat, when it suddenly stopped 
and has not since been resumed. Frank James did not 
come; but always expecting him, with that fearful appre- 
hension of death which haunts the guilty mind, you opened 
negotiations inviting his surrender. What the nature of 
the contract between you may be is not entirely known, but 
there is little doubt that you promised he should not be 
hung, and he that you should not be assassinated. Ac- 
cordingly, the gentleman bandit shortly thereafter shook 
hands with you in your office. 

In your last message to the Legislature you urged an ap 
propriation to purchase the portraits of the various Gover- 
nors of this State. Your personal vanity in this recom- 
mendation was plainly apparent. When the appropriation 
bill was under discussion in the House, an amendment was 
offered designating the sum of $4,500 for the purpose. 
Then uprose Mr. Swetnam, of Clay, and speaking to the 
amendment, said : " Mr. Speaker, the State of Missouri has 
had some Governors who were statesmen. I respected, 
honored, and loved them. The last of this noble band was 
succeeded in office in January, 1881. She has had other 
Governors I never care to see or hear of. Could the por- 
traits only of the true and good be purchased and nailed to 



— 5 — 

these walls, I would vote for the appropriation. But, sir, 
from the sacriticc of purchasing portraits of shysters, the 
corrupt and the false, who have crept into that exalted 
office, may God save the member from Clay." Of course 
the proposition was overwhelmingly voted down. 

You have been hoarselv clamorous for the enforcement of 
the alleged Sunday-law in St. Louis, going so far as to 
basely impugn the motives of the honest judge, who de- 
cided that it did not apply to this city. And as if this exhi- 
bition of your maliguty were not enough, in a fit of rage 
you threatened to call an extra session of the Legislature, 
hoping that that body would enforce upon the denizens of 
this great metropolis your hypocritical Puritanism. And 
yet you had before you the report of the committee of the 
last General Assembly, api)oiuted to investigate the affairs 
of the penitentiary, which points out your deliberate and 
continuous nullification of the law forbidding the employ- 
ment of State convicts at the Executive Mansion. These 
convicts have charge of your horses and cows, they wash 
your linen and perform every menial service in and about 
your ofiicial residence, entirely without compensation and in 
total disregard of section 6512 of the Revised Statutes. 
What an exhibition of consistency ! Alas, that noble attri- 
bute of a well-governed mind is outside your intellectual 
ken, and the consciousness of shame has no part in giving 
to your cheeks that delicate rosy hue which, coloring your 
sweet alluring smiles, makes you the gubernatorial Adonis 
of these United States. Adonis et pre.terea niJiil. 

The bill establishing a bureau of labor statistics passed 
by the Thirty-second General Assembly provided that imme- 
diately after its passage the Governor by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate, should appoint a com- 
missioner. You approved the bill on the 2od of ^Nlarch and 
during the two days thereafter, caused the Senate to be 
secretly polled with a view to ascertain whether the name 
of Mr. Henry A. Newman would be favorably received by 
that body. A friendly Senator informed you that it would 



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not, whereupon you waltzed over to Kentucky as a volun- 
teer witness for the Louisville Courier- Journal in a suit for 
libel, hoping thereby to enlist the powerful aid of Mr. 
Henry Watterson in behalf of your amusing delusion that 
you are a fit man for the Vice-Presidential nomination on 
the Democratic ticket of 1884., Tittlebat Titmouse Critten- 
den for Vice-President of the United States ! ! Oh, ever 
dear and venerated shade of the immortal Don Quixote, 
arise in thy valor, throw off the cerements of the grave and 
fly to the assistance of the last scion of thine ancient house. 
Array him in thine own impenetrable armor, place in his 
hands thy redoubtable lance, mount him upon thy faithful 
Kosinante, bid Henry Newman attend as his loyal Sancho 
Panza and sound the bugle note heralding his entrance to the 
field, for none of thy most entertaining stupidities have ever 
rivalled this one of his I Vice-President of the United 
States ! What lesson does the old fabulist teach in telling 
the story of the toad who endeavored to swell himself to 
the size of an ox? Is it to beware of ambition? No, but 
to regard the eternal fitness of things. Ambition is the 
noblest of the vices. When it espouses civic virtue it gives 
incarnation to the loftiest aspirations of the human soul. 
From its loins spring Hampdens, Sobieskis and Washing- 
tons. " Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kinffs." 
In our ow^n beloved State, as chieftains among its offspring, 
have shone the great Benton, the heroic Frank Blair, the 
noble Sterling Price, and the stern old statesman, John S. 
Phelps. The virtuous ambition of these men has illumin- 
ated the story of their lives upon the most absorbing pages 
of Missouri's history. 

But ambition is not to be identified with its bastard 
brother — love of notoriety. The former ennobles, the 
latter enslaves. So long as this passion for notoriety re- 
tains its virginal idiocy it only provokes good-natured 
laughter, and dies without issue. But when it lives in in- 
cestuous concubinage with avarice, treachery and mendacity 
the world stands aghast at its progeny of Beau Brummels, 



— 7 — 

Benedict Arnolds, and Tom Tit Crittendens. Vice Presi- 
dent of the United States ! When you reach that exalted 
position buttertles will hatch buzzards in thimbles, and kan- . , 

garoos will teach philosophy in the halls of Ho-wftrtl Uni- flCt^t/l^'t C^ 
versity. 

Immediately upon the adjournment of the Legislature, 
having successfully defied the law, you appointed Mr. New- 
man. Folding him in your clammy embrace, you bade him 
go forth among the forges, workshops and trades-unions of 
the horny-handed sons of toil and fasten them to the sup- 
port of delegations that would be favorable to your de- 
mented hopes on the National Convention. But these 
stalwart men of brawn have locked their doors against your 
emissary, and have refused him all recognition, not for any 
special demerits of his own, but because they regard him 
as the organizer of your degraded political fortunes. 

Your management of police affairs in this city, opening 
with corruption, has since been a shifting panorama of high 
comedy and low farce. In conformity with your solemn 
engagement to the gamblers of this city, you appointed 
Messrs. Boland and Kinkead Police Commissioners, with 
the advice and consent of Mr. Warren McChesney. That 
gentleman having duly and generously paid for this favor, 
nevertheless thought it advisable to take a mortgage upon 
these two saints. In drawing it up he constituted your ex- 
cellency the trustee, and himself the holder of the notes. 
Dropping metaphor, he took their blank resignations, ad- 
dressed to you, to be filled up at such time as, in his judg- 
ment, they should become forgetful of their duty to the 
public. Still, this not giving you and your estimable con- 
freres a majority of the board, you were ordered to dis- 
place the two commissioners appointed by Gov. Phelps. 
You did so. The scene then changed. Their places were 
to be filled, and an outcry had arisen at your action. Mr. 
McChesney retired temporarily from the stage, but yonv 
excellency kept a view of it from the wings. Mr. Thos. 
E. Tutt entered, and, approaching Mr. Charles Green, ten- 



dered him, in your name, the appointment of Police Com- 
missioner, with the proviso that you should have his blank 
resignation. Mr. Green refused in words of indio-nant 
contempt, and bade Mr. Tutt tell you that the Governor of 
Missouri did not know him, else he would not have made so 
infamous a proffer. Mr. Tutt's high reputation is now, 
and has always been, beyond cavil in this community, and 
Mr. Green stands in the very front of our eminent citizens. 
I therefore challenge either of these gentlemen to deny the 
foul deception you practised on Mr. Tutt, or the ignomini- 
ous humiliations you sought to impose on Mr. Green. 

In furtherance of this history I simply note here that 
while you have not yet been three years in office you have 
appointed eleven police commissioners, every one of whom 
has already or will certainly be betrayed. 

Mr. E. A. Hitchcock, foreman of the last grand jury, the 
same gentleman from whom in the same capacity, three 
years ago, you claimed to have received sufficient cause to 
remove the appointees of Gov. Phelps now tells you that 
there is a vast gambling ring in St. Louis and calls upon you 
to investigate the matter. I unhesitatingly tell Mr. Hitch- 
cock that you will not do it ; tliat you dare not do it; that he 
might as well expect Frank James to get up before a jury 
impanelled to try him for his life, and tell them the history 
of his crimes. Mr. McChesney has been indicted, but 
whether adjudged innocent or guilty, he is as safe from 
punishment during your administration as though he were 
lord chief justice of England. 

Your career as Governor of this State stands alone. It 
is without a model and defies imitation. It baffles criticism 
and exhausts invective. It was the pity of yesterday, it is 
Ihe apprehension of to-day, it will be the derision of to- 
morrow, and when you lay it down at the feet of your suc- 
cessor, the sonorous " amen " that will rise from a hundred 
thousand Democratic voices will make the welkin ring with 
a joyous acclaim. A distinguised Republican editor thus 
epigrammatically describes it: " Crittenden alternates be- 



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tween knavery and folly. When any one wants him to do 
a foolish thing they mostly approach him on his knave day . 
When any one wishes him to do a knavish act they are 
likely to suggest it on his fool day, and when anything 
honest is desired he is invariably absent from the State." 

Of all the distinguished men who were elected with you 
on the Democratic ticket, you have secured the respect of 
not a single one. The Lieutenant-Governor reposes in se- 
rene indifference to your follies. The Auditor is disgusted 
with your avarice. The Treasurer is chagrined at your 
trickery in garbling his report in your message to the Legis- 
lature. The Secretary of State turns up his nose at your 
sham Democracy, which, like a child's soiled linen, must be 
aired every day before it can again be pinned to your polit- 
ical principles. The bluff, honest Register of Lands dis- 
avows all responsibility, as a co-ordinate officer, for your 
acts ; while the Attorney General is constantly wondering 
in what new and ridiculous position you will place him as 
" law officer of the crown." 

In all this recital of your strange, eventful career, I have 
followed the advice of Othello. I have extenuated nothing, 
nor set down aught in malice, but spoken of you as you 
are. Allow me to close the chapter in the words of the 
great English Unknown, in his letter to the Duke of Graf- 
ton : " It is the historian's office to punish, though he cannot 
correct. I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imi- 
tate, but as an example to deter ; and as your conduct com- 
prehends everything that a wise and honest governor should 
avoid, I mean to make you a negative instruction to your 
successors forever." 

I am, &c., &c., &c., ' 

John D. Finney. 



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